Date of airing: May 3, 2005 (UPN)
Nielsen ratings information: 2.85 million viewers, 1.9/3 in Households, 1.1/3 with Adults 18-49
written by: Diane Ruggiero
directed by: Marcos Siega
Veronica and Logan just cannot get it figured out. They were pretty much separated at the beginning of the episode after they had something of a wonderful romance for most of the previous hour, they got back together after Veronica established what happened to her at Shelly Pomroy’s party and that Logan is not to be blamed, and then they were separated again after Veronica found the surveillance system in the bedroom, which was essentially a way for Logan to record all of the naughty deeds he was doing with his conquests. VERONICA MARS is kind of like one of those high school television dramas with a main couple that is always on and off, always in the middle or in-between a relationship, just to carry that chemistry and drama throughout the entire series and create the infamous and sometimes annoying will-they/won't-they dynamic. And the show might not even have started with Logan and Veronica being the power couple, although chances are it was always planned for the two to be together at some point, since their love/hate relationship is perfect for the show’s narrative and a romance. Especially now that Logan may have been exonerated in the murder of Lilly Kane, but he could still be an asshole and not the right partner for Veronica. Because it is a fact that I still find their romance a bit weird, after he was antagonistic towards her for half a season.
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| Beaver is very much not happy to see Veronica right now. |
Before the season ends with the conclusion to Lilly Kane’s murder (or
pulls what would later be known as the cop-out finale as seen in 2011's THE
KILLING), Veronica still has some bills to pay, and the most expensive
bill was that of her rape at Shelly Pomroy's end-of-the-year party. It felt fitting that she would solve her own
rape in the penultimate episode of the season, since it has been the
second-biggest running arc of the season, even if for more than half of
the season, the rape was somewhat forgotten by both the writers and the
characters (for obvious reasons: you would not want your audience to be constantly reminded about Veronica's rape when they are watching one half of a high school teen drama). In a way, this episode of VERONICA MARS was also an episode
of COLD CASE – Veronica questioned witnesses and suspects of a crime
that happened more than a year ago, and she got reliable answers and then could
put the pieces of the blacked-out party together like it was a true
3000-piece puzzle for the extra-large dinner table.
The conclusion to the rape story might have been a bit of a cop-out itself though, and here is where I did not like the episode: The rape was essentially written out of Veronica's backstory, and everything was peachy by the end of the episode. Veronica was not raped, she just had consensual, albeit drugged-out, intercourse with her then-boyfriend. Let's just forget for a moment that Duncan thought he just had sex with his sister, and the fact that Veronica had GHB in her system because of an overzealous bitch who did not like Veronica. All of those individual elements did not even have to do anything with one another, but here they were, culminating into a night of regrettable choices, but all this time, Veronica believed she was raped, and now all of a sudden the rape has not only been concluded as a story, but also eradicated from Veronica’s backstory, because the rape turned into sex with consent.
I am a little disappointed – the rape could have continued to give Veronica a few nightmares here and there and make her character arc, but in hindsight, I should appreciate that the writers even considered solving the case and just cutting it out of Veronica’s story altogether. When you look at most of the season, the event barely put a dent in Veronica’s character arc (although an argument can be made that Veronica is who she is now because of what happened at Shelly Pomroy’s party, and how people, especially Sheriff Lamb, reacted to her claims), so why should it ever be part of her character backstory again?
I am intrigued to know however if this was always the plan for the story, like it was always the plan for whoever killed Lilly Kane. Maybe you do not have the answers when you write the pilot episode, but do you know where the backstories and current arcs were ending when you attempted to break the second episode? Did Rob Thomas know that Duncan and Veronica were doing it at Shelly Pomroy’s party after the pilot was picked up to series? Did he know who Lilly Kane’s killer was from the beginning and dropped clues to their identity throughout the season? Questions I would love to ask the writers, because after LOST, you never know when the writers are bullcrapping the viewers with “we always knew where we would go,” when they pretty much just came up with stuff as they went along. In TV history, I would consider 2009's short-lived DEFYING GRAVITY the show that was fully planned through (or mostly) when the pilot was written (series creator James Parriott even revealed the show's entire storyline a year after the show's cancellation), and LOST as one of the shows the writers had no idea about where it would go. Hence their get-together during the hiatus between seasons one and two, when the whole DHARMA Initiative was developed and put into the backstory of the show, according to Alan Sepinwall’s “The Revolution Was Televised.”
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| Time to celebrate a birthday three months too late or nine months too early – take your pick. |
The rest of the episode was okay. Keith going for the woman who could prove Abel Koontz’s innocence was essentially a story to lead into the season finale, and seeing Lianne return home was a nice little surprise, although that could just be a prologue to finish off things nicely instead of hectically like in their backstory. Lianne and Keith could separate amicably, and Lianne and Veronica could have their goodbye for real this time, giving Keith the space on the road towards a new relationship, maybe even with Wallace's mother – it is a story closed and filed under “k” for concluded, and with it, Veronica can move on and resolve her mommy issues, and Keith can officially date in the wilderness like there is no tomorrow (to be honest, I do not see a future between him and Mrs. Fennel).
Meanwhile, Duncan went nuts on his car, and I have no idea what the reason for the outburst was: The fact that he was nuts in general, or was he just freaking jealous and angry of Veronica to date the wrongest of guys in his opinion? Or is his life simply just going down the drain, since he has his outbursts, Veronica accused him of rape, some of the Kane family secrets are out in the open, he has no friends, his relationship with Meg is probably not working well, and he cannot even remember if he killed Lilly or not. So... smashing up a car is normal behavior in that case?
